Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, the Minister has spoken. Indeed, there is a convention in this House that he can speak early on in the debate and that other noble Lords can come in afterwards. I think we are grateful that he spoke at this stage to set out the Government’s views and that, although the Government have had a lot of time over the summer to consider these matters with the clocks ticking and the buffers ahead, they have decided to move a bit faster after their meeting this morning—or was it almost this afternoon?—with the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and are likely to bring forward something that will be acceptable to her, to us and to others in this House who have added their names to this amendment. We on these Benches support the general principles which the noble Baroness has put forward. We have come to this view after long and hard thought, because in the main we prefer not to add new offences to the statute book. However, if there are gaps, we certainly want them to be filled. At this stage, we support the noble Baroness and hope that she can make progress with the Government over the next week—or the next week and one day, depending on how long Report continues for—and that the Government will keep moving as they should.